Defense

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman sought assistance from U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday to help fight Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis, two sources familiar with the matter said on Friday, as the Houthis stepped up their threat to the Red Sea. Trump held at least two phone conversations with the Saudi leader on Thursday, sources said. In the end, Washington told Riyadh that it was not…

Iran’s capture of a U.S. military underwater drone gives Tehran an opportunity to study and potentially reverse-engineer the vessel, delivering a setback for the Pentagon and drone maker Anduril. The U.S. military and Anduril have downplayed the significance of the drone falling into Iranian hands. The vessel, a Dive-LD autonomous underwater vehicle designed for long-range surveillance and other…

When Andy Markoff deployed to Mosul with the U.S. Marine Raiders in 2016, one of the challenges they faced as they pushed ISIS fighters back along a hundred-mile front was that they never had enough munitions, he said. Markoff explained that calling in air support was an effective way to clear an area, but with thousands of potential targets and few available weapon systems, he constantly had to…

In the wake of Iranian attacks that devastated U.S. bases in the Middle East, the U.S. Air Force wants portable air-defense guns that can destroy drones and cruise missiles. The Ground-Based, Medium-Caliber Gun Weapon System project is aiming for a weapon “that fires affordable munitions, enables defense against air and missile threats with an initial focus on subsonic cruise missiles (CM) and…